Friday, March 29, 2013

Boat Ride

Ohio Key, Florida (high 74, low 65)

We’re still waiting for the March winds to die down and the temperatures to come back up, so that we can get out on the water in the kayaks. It’s been pretty chilly here in the Keys, but things appear to be improving. We’ve been here in November, December, January, February and March and we’ve never had this cool of weather. It’s very unusual, especially for late March.

We actually got out on a boat ride late yesterday afternoon and the wind died down just about the time we went out.

We went out of a canal off of Little Torch Key, crossed under Highway 1 and over to the Atlantic side. When you’re in the water here, you’re either in the Atlantic side or the Bay side. The Overseas Highway (highway 1) divides the two bodies of water.

We came upon an island called Picnic Island. It was where the movie PT109 was filmed. I guess we’ll have to watch that movie now.

The next island we came to was called Little Palm Island. Al had read a Brad Thor book where they talked about this wonderful little island resort. It’s where the rich and famous go to be pampered. The only way to get there is by boat (yacht) or helicopter. I understand they have a breakfast buffet for a mere $75. You can ride out in one of their beautiful old wooden water taxi’s. If you want to get in some of their pampering, it will only cost you $3000 a night to stay there. Word is that Willie Nelson was there recently.

Al and our boat captain, Nick.

The wild hair on Nick make you think he is a Key West native, but he’s actually from Maryland. He and his wife Rindi just retired from the government and have a house on a canal. They split their time between the Keys and Maryland where they also have a boat.

This next picture is taken of a cat sitting in a boat across the canal from Nick and Rindi’s place. The boat is in the water and the cat climbs down the steps to enter the boat. Nick said it is one of the Hemingway 6 toed cats.

After our lovely boat ride, we headed back home for happy hour.

I loved this sign that was in front of an Rv here in the park. It’s 5:00 somewhere!

Last night was the warmest and least windy we’ve had since we’ve been here. I hope that is the end of the wind!

Even the pigeons were trying to stay warm and out of the wind.

We went for a walk under the bridge the other night. Notice, it is happy hour! This is one of the bridges I love to photograph when we kayak under it.

The tide was out, exposing the rocky shore on this part of the island.

The other day we took a drive down to Key West. We figured it would be a good day to visit since it was too windy to get out on the water.

Boy, did we figure wrong. Easter week is NOT the time to visit Key West. Unless of course, you like big crowds! We turned around and headed home after seeing how crowded it was.

There were a lot of beautiful flowers blooming, so we’ll have to go back next week.

Notice the blooms on this tree? I had to snap the shot as we were driving by, so it’s not a great picture.

We had a tree in Georgia (and the name of it escapes me for the moment) that had blooms similar to this. This was not the same tree though, but it sure was pretty.

The next picture is a bougainvillea.

Notice where the air conditioning unit is mounted on this next house?

One of the motorhomes here in the park had the most beautiful outdoor lights. They appeared to be little dots of light going down the side of his coach and in the palm trees.

I didn’t even try to capture it in a photograph. The little twinkle lights would kind of wash down the side of the coach and up into the palm trees.

We got a chance to ask the owner yesterday and he said they are called Bliss Lights and he got them from Amazon. He was busy getting ready to leave so we didn’t get any more information.

Here is the website where they sell them. There are a couple short videos and the one showing the portable unit looked interesting. I think that may have been the one the guy here had.

Here is the link from Amazon which shows a picture. Trust me, the picture doesn’t begin to capture how beautiful they are.

They had those lights on QVC also and I think they were a little less than that. The twinkling effect with theirs tho only came when there was a breeze. Is that how the ones you saw worked? I thought they were really cool also!

Did you know that if you walk under the bridge at low tide, then just keep walking, you come to an island. Around the island you can find some wonderful shells, including some small conch shells? I tried it one day, but as I did not time the tides too well, I was afraid of getting trapped, so never found any shells. Next time!